build towers from the bones of giants
by doloroso
Summary: love in a warzone. —cato/foxface; set during 'days of future past'; xmen/thg crossover; ::for cherie::


a/n: for the lovely Cherie, flawless wifey of mine. happy birthday, babe! :D

* * *

><p><strong>98<strong>

She dies in the seventeenth timeline. Clove kills her from point-blank range by passing enough watts of electricity into her brain to blacken the ground underneath them for miles and miles, making the concrete hiss and sizzle. Finch, _his _Finch, crumples, glorious and beautiful, onto the rooftop, her lips open and exhaling thin wisps of smoke and the smell of burnt flesh, her body spasming as the last of the voltage disperses. Everything that had begun to animate - cars, windows, even the people in the process of disintegration as their molecules stretched - ceases so suddenly that the silence following the death of Finch's telekinesis feels solid, a weight more complete than gravity. Clove is crying when she turns away and steps off of the ledge; she runs to him and he holds her, small and slender in his arms, as the rest of the team watches, struck mute. Katniss' hands go slack and her hair stops billowing, Finnick lets the water subside, Haymitch lets his rifle fall and clatter, spilling out shells, and bows his head.

"Is it done?" Clove asks, a fragile whimper in the crook of his neck. "Is she-"

"Yeah," he says, and then he is crying, too.

* * *

><p><strong>27<strong>

"_Go, go, go!_" Thresh screams, boots digging into the gravel pathway. She is with them and their meager party of four - herself, Thresh, Rue, and Prim - are currently engrossed in evading Sentinel capture. Above, air sirens bleat shrilly, thunderheads gather, and the Sentinels approach, heavy metal feet thumping and eyes ablaze, cutting swaths of light through the dark.

Thresh snarls and stomps on the ground, hard. A jagged crack runs through the earth and into the robots, halting them momentarily and buying more time. Rue and Prim, their youngest stowaways, cling to each other for support; Rue is an unrefined teleporter, level 4 at most, and certainly not Omega material like Peeta, but she can manage a few things. All of them hold hands and Rue closes her eyes and she can hear the air warping, a sound like a sob-

-they are twenty feet away from where they started, in the shadow of a fallen apartment complex dripping dust through the broken windows and doors. A Sentinel, dark steel and starry ocular receptors, trains its gaze on them and she freezes. Already, its programs are assessing, analyzing them at the impossibly finite level of their DNA, assessing them as mutants and readying them for destruction. Thresh's hand sweeps out, and a chunk of rock dislodges from the ground, hurtling towards the robot at a lethal speed. Immediately, it reacts with a shot of energy from its chest, angling the cannon upwards to intercept the boulder and blast it to pieces. Rue and Prim shriek; her mind ripples outward, gathering kinetic energy and focusing it into a narrow blade. The Sentinel's vision goes black moments later as she severs its head from its body, taking along its neural processors and vital sensory adaptors, rendering it useless. There are still more coming, however, massed as thickly as a cloud of flies, rising above the horizon like an army of titans. Her fists clench; she knows what she will do.

"Get the kids and take them out of here," she commands. "Rue, teleport yourself and Thresh and Prim as far as you. I'll buy you time."

Thresh begins to raise a voice in protest, but she silences him imperiously with a single telepathic order, shuddering as she does so. The girls and Thresh link up, Rue's soot-streaked face the last thing she sees before the three of them wink out of existence.

_Be brave, _she thinks of Plutarch saying, _be strong._

More importantly, she thinks of Cato, and that is what gives her courage as she draws her power and faces off against the Sentinels, glowering defiantly into the barrels of their weapons, wind whipping around her feet.

_I am no coward_, Finch notes, and lets out the fury.

* * *

><p><strong>46<strong>

_You were always too reckless_, Snow laughs, his thoughts immense and infinitely calculating as he strolls leisurely across the landscape of Cato's brain. He grits his teeth and tries to force the man out, but Snow is an almost Omega-level telepath, instigator of the mutant genocide in almost all of the timelines he's encountered so far - it would take Plutarch or someone of his caliber to even dream of mentally duelling with Snow, and Plutarch's dead because of the shapeshifter.

_Idiot_, hisses Snow_, did you truly believe you could challenge me? I have seen your death a thousand times, in every conceivable future. No matter how many times your people try to change what happens, your efforts will ultimately prove to be for naught. Submit, boy, and perhaps I shall let you leave with your sanity intact. _He sneers. _Maybe I'll even grant you a pleasant daydream to spend the rest of your days with: that lovely girl of yours, for instance._

_No! _he shouts, but Snow forces him down easily, carelessly. The telepath gives a bemused chuckle, pinning him down by sheer force of will, a crosshair away from tearing his mental faculties asunder.

_Yield, Cato_, Snow spits. _Yield to me. You've already visited this timeline once before; you know how it plays out. You can minimize the casualties, lessen the damage, try and change this terrible future if you want to. But all that hangs on your answer. _He feels the press of something sharp, something dark, at the back of his mind. _So answer correctly._

Cato barks laughter, knowing it will only aggravate Snow further. _Why even bother with the pleasantries? Even if I did agree to become one of your thralls, you'd still go ahead with your power plan, and besides, you've visited this timeline as well; you know what I'll tell you, every fucking time. _He raises his middle finger, or the mental impression of it, at Snow, and says, _I refuse, you shitbag._

Snow shrieks, pure unbridled rage tearing through his synapses like a wave of magma, red-hot and monstrous, and he feels a sudden rip as Snow withdraws from his mind, not quietly at all. He blinks, finding Finch standing above him with a bloody pen hovering a few inches from her head; Snow lies bleeding on the floor nearby, a hole drilled into his forehead. Finch kisses him, desperately, madly, and he kisses back and he cradles her head while she sobs into his chest.

* * *

><p><strong>9<strong>

He passes her notes during class, when Plutarch is lecturing. She passes them back, her own handwriting thin and slanted between his messier script. The boy with the wheat-colored hair smiles at her and she smiles in return, something warm rising up in her chest at the sight of him.

* * *

><p><strong>74<strong>

She kills him right at the beginning of the Colorado battle. It's the fifth timeline, and Finnick's told him about it prior to the fight so he thinks that he's prepared when it happens.

He is anything but. Finch skewers him through the stomach with an industrial beam, tapered into a spear and launched at such an incredible force that all his blood vessels burst right at the moment of contact, his bones fracture and snap, and his vision turns to dull crimson. Death isn't one of those textbook subjects that can be learned from a distance and then applied suddenly when the situation arises; he has no idea how it feels, the excrutiating agony of it, as the beam pierces his flesh and comes out the other end, stained with his blood and stomach fluid. She's looking at him as she drives it in, the Phoenix engulfing her consciousness and replacing it with its own raw energy, sexuality and passion, the pure thrill of life and death, the primal instinct to take and never to give. It's like staring into a black hole. There's nothing left of the Finch he knew, only this shell inhabited by a being far older, far more malignant and cruel than he could ever fathom.

_I'll be fine, I'll be fine_, he repeats, _I'm going to return_. Shock starts to set in and the pain numbs, spots of white popping through the red haze. _I'm going to-_

His breathing stops.

* * *

><p><strong>15<strong>

She strips off his soaking wet shirt and tosses it away, willing it to arc into one of the laundry baskets. It lands dead-center and folds itself neatly, wringing out the water as it does. Cato's breathing hard, an ugly purple bruise forming along his torso, discoloring the otherwise clean, hard lines of muscle and skin. Finnick and Peeta, both bareshirted, glance at them occasionally, Katniss preoccupied with mending her bow, Clove off changing out of her uniform.

"Does it hurt?" she asks, gently massaging the wound with the tips of her fingers, telekinetically coaxing the blood flow. He shakes his head, wincing as she increases the pressure. Gesturing, she calls over one of the medkits, taking out a tube of ointment and a roll of bandages. The ointment she applies directly, rubbing it into the spot until Cato's eyelids flutter and he starts to smile, after which she snips off a strip of bandage and tapes it on. _Good as new_, she smiles to herself as Cato gets up and stretches, rolling his shoulders to get the feeling back in them.

Finnick makes a verbal jab as he passes her en route to the shower, saying, "Man, what I'd do to beat up just to get those hands on me," and she shoves him playfully, blushing red. Cato's looking at her oddly, and she can't help but to admire him: all muscle, not an ounce of fat, like something only achieved in Greek sculpture. She could touch that body all day and still not tire of it, of Cato.

Leaving the room too quickly, she stops outside in the hall to collect herself. She's still attuned to his thoughts from outside, can feel and perceive them: there's the exhaustion that comes with training, the soreness of the bruise acquired from being hit by one of the simulation bots, but, most of all, a curious affection for the redhaired girl. Herself.

Her cheeks are still flaming long after she's pushed the image of him out of her head, or at least tried to.

* * *

><p><strong>4<strong>

He ruffles her hair as they pass each other in the hallway, walking to class. "Hey, skinny," he'll say, and carry her books for her. She sticks her tongue out at him but she still giggles, which is a sound unto itself. There's a beauty in the way she carries herself, in the way she walks; strong and proud, red hair cascading down her shoulders thick and warm. On occasion, she holds his hand and it's the best damn feeling in the world.

* * *

><p><strong>89<strong>

Cato yells at her to jump. She does, cursing and raising a shield to dampen the hardest of the Sentinel's blast. Energy disperses into meandering atoms, reverting to potential energy; she gathers it with the force of her mind and sends it hurtling back, turning it kinetic just as it smashes into the Sentinel's chest and caves it in, sending up a spray of smoke and wires and metal plating. Haymitch, a hole in his stomach, curls his fingers into claws and another Sentinel falls, crumpling into a deformed ball of steel. _Ferrokinesis_, she notes as she watches him flick the husks of two government choppers into the legs of a third Sentinel, slashing through its knees and crippling it. Finnick, their only hydrokinetic, draws massive waves of water from a lake and sends them crashing into the robots, shorting out their circuitry. Prim knits together cuts and mends burns huddled beneath a hastily constructed shelter, with Clove standing vigil, hands crackling with bolts of electricity.

She and Cato leap over cars and chunks of fallen masonry, running as fast as they can - or rather, she hovers just above the ground, while Cato jogs until the veins stand out in the back of his neck. Telekinetically, she plucks rubble out of the earth and throws it at their attackers, sometimes missing but able to guide the debris right where she wants it most of the time. Steel and wiring ooze out of the Sentinels' hole-riddled armor like guts, their big arms sweeping around and collapsing into simple three-barrel cannons, blazing with deconstructing energy. Biceps straining, Cato tears a massive overhanging metal strut out of the skeleton of a former military barrack, dashing underneath one of the Sentinels faster than she can blink, and swinging the strut like a baseball bat. He takes out its ankle supports and one of its full legs, but there's already more coming. A pair of eyes brighten, hotter than a supernova, and issue forth two solid beams of ultrahot heat, melting the concrete as it passes over, heading for Cato-

The tug in her gut warns her before it actually happens. As he burns, she screams, pouring all of her grief out and shaking the skyscrapers where they still stand. Fire blooms, encapsulating her in its warm embrace, and from the confines of her mind sings the Phoenix, madness and devastation made whole.

In the span of a day, the fifteenth timeline is burnt to a crisp. Phoenix rises.

* * *

><p><strong>30<strong>

There are only so many ways he can say 'goodbye,' and his list is rapidly dwindling. Finch stands with him outside the gate, waiting for the next jump to start. She kisses his cheek and he leans into her, desperate, hungry in a way he can't name.

"I'm sorry it has to be this way," he tells her. She brushes the start of a tear away from his eye, and manages a smile.

"Don't be. I understand." They watch as the others step into the vortex, vanishing through it without the tiniest flash of smoke. "I hope that you - that you solve, well, whatever it is that makes the world turn out the way it did."

"Promise," he says, hugging her. "And don't worry. I'll be back soon."

"I know you will," she replies, kissing him on the mouth. When she pulls back, she's gnawing on her lower lip. "It's time for you, Cato."

He nods, polite. Finnick joins him as they go, and the older mutant gives a subtle jerk of his head down to where Finch stands. "She may be the variable, but that doesn't mean you can't say your last goodbyes. Hurry. I'll see you on the other side, alright?"

"Alright." Cato turns and looks below, where the redhead is still lingering. She waves at him. He waves back, and there's so much more to it than what the gesture is.

The vortex beckons, insistent. He takes a deep breath and walks into the future.

* * *

><p><strong>5<strong>

"You are the cataclysm," Plutarch tells her one day, the two of them sitting alone in his lecture hall. "That's why the war happened. You."

She should feel shock, hurt at his words; she should be offended enough to be angry, and suddenly, she realizes what he means. Finch folds her hands across her skirt, looking her mentor in the eye.

"I'd like to know more," she requests. "I want to know what I become."

* * *

><p><strong>62<strong>

It's the same in every timeline. She is the constant, the remnant variable, the Phoenix. In every one, the Phoenix emerges and the world burns. They've tried in every way possible to avert the Colorado battle, but it always happens. Random events lead to larger-scale results. The butterfly effect in beautiful, perpetual motion.

She always lives. She never dies, except in one timeline, and that's the flawed one. There's no in-between; she can't be herself without the Phoenix, and the Phoenix can't thrive without its host. Two decisions. Kill the beast, lest it bite. Slay the Phoenix and Finch or allow the Apocalypse to happen.

The option of separating Finch and the Phoenix does not exist. A pleasant dream, but nothing more. Kill the beast, or humanity will be the one that gets bitten.

Kill the beast.

* * *

><p><strong>57<strong>

The mountains call to her. She knows now what she will do. She knows, and it is terrible and wonderful at the same time, to look upon the face of a God and not turn away.

* * *

><p><strong>100<strong>

This is the anomaly: the Phoenix immolates the universe and itself, and from the ashes is life reborn. This is the anomaly: Finch dies, but he dies with her.

* * *

><p><strong>39<strong>

It's starting to leak through. Visions of a rotten planet.

Through her mind's eye, she gazes upon Snow, instigator of the First, Second, and Third Genocides, head of the Sentinel program and Secretary of Defense, bearing a false banner of hope in the ruin. Herself, vicious and wild, caressing the cosmos with destruction and chaos, the Phoenix flaring behind her, more brilliant than anything humankind could ever dream up.

She, the goddess. He, the king of the damned.

Either way, no one gets their victory.

* * *

><p><strong>10<strong>

He has never been good at love. She makes it easy, though, to want to kiss her, to hold her body against his and feel their hearts beating together. He's not a dumbass, he knows what she is and what she can do.

Still-

* * *

><p><strong>3<strong>

-she could love him, if not for everything. If not for all those lifetimes in which he shouted her name at the top of his lungs, caught in the storm, and she failed to answer.

* * *

><p><strong>0<strong>

The boy with the wheat-colored hair and the strong arms finds her in an alley, another boy levitating several feet off of the ground and shrieking hysterically.

"The hell d'you think you are?" he asks at first, before he sees the floating boy, and his sneer slips. Her hair billows softly around her head, thin red fibers like rays of a red sun. She faces him boldly and demands of him the same thing. He laughs.

"You got a lot of spunk, foxface," the boy chuckles. The girl turns on him in an instant, hissing out, "_My name is Finch!_", which only makes him laugh harder.

"Pleased ta' meetcha then, kid," says the boy, in the heavy accent of the Bronx. "Name's Cato. Whatcha doin' out here? This is my place, not a place for some girl."

The redhead - _Finch_ - gives a catlike smile, a smile that unnerves and charms in equal measure, and answers, "None of your business."

Cato grins.


End file.
